Dr. Helen Pridmore
Nadia Francavilla
November 8, 2016
8:00PM – $5.00 @ Door
Joining the musicians will be Dr. Michael Trussler, an award-winning writer and professor at the University of Regina, who will discuss Kafka’s writing in a talk entitled “Franz Kafka and the Unrelenting Uncanny.”
Introduction
2016 is the 90th birth anniversary of the important Hungarian composer György Kurtàg, who has attained heightened international prominence during the last several decades. Neutral Ground is pleased and proud to present a concert of one of the composer’s most significant works, the monumental Kafka Fragments, Op. 24, a song cycle scored for voice and violin.
An opportunity to hear this work in live performance is rare and rewarding, for the composition demands great expressive and technical virtuosity of the duo performers. “In Kurtág’s tiny fragments lies music of unflinching emotional and existential rawness,” writes The Guardian.
The musical work is based on excerpts from letters and journals of Franz Kafka (1883-1924), who is widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th century literature. The texts are a
highly personal exploration of disparate moments within his life, varying by turn from deeply introspective to despairing, dramatic, joyful, humourous.
Kurtàg’s Kafka Fragments will be performed by soprano Dr. Helen Pridmore, University of Regina, and violinist Nadia Francavilla of Fredericton, New Brunswick.
